Parent's Corner

   
From: Ken Swarner

More Than I Want To See

  Current trends have high school and college kids wearing low cut pants and high cut shirts.  Normally (and my wife would attest strongly to this) I don't pay much attention to the fashion world.  The current styles, however, are impossible not to notice.  There is a layer of textile missing in the mid section of the "in" clothes, therefore, when people lean over, quite frankly, you can see their butt cracks.
    Everywhere I go I am seeing more of people than I want to.  Last week, five times I was minding my own business when WHOA there was someone in my line of sight sharing more than they should.
    That's right - the unthinkable has happened: Plumbers have dictated fashion.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see this year's top fashion shows in Paris and New York sponsored by Roto-Rooter.
    My introduction to this fashion trend was baptism by fire.  I sing in a community choir at my local college.  I am a tenor, therefore I sit near the back of the raised seating.  As I was singing last spring, a college age soprano leaned forward to get a tissue from her purse.  You can guess what I saw - a half moon.  The tenor next to me gasped.  For a couple seconds, we just looked at each other unsure what to do.  As a parent, I felt the paternal instinct to inform her what was happening, but instead, I ended up missing my cue and giggling through five measures.
    I am surprised kids today want to wear these clothes.  Don't they get razzed at school?  When I was a kid, showing your back-end was grounds for a hazing.  Jokes could literally follow you for years through school.  This happened to a friend of mine in the ninth grade.  At our ten-year high school reunion, the jocks still called him 'Mooney.'
    And yet no one seems concerned today.
    But it's more than how this new style affects those exposing themselves.  There are also implications for parents with young children.  As many of you know, kids love to LOUDLY notice the obvious, especially as you are passing the candy aisle at the grocery store and your daughter points to the teenager leaning over studying the Milk Duds: "Look mommy, I can see that girl's -"
    "Yes dear, keep moving...."
    I supposed all of this is why every night before I go to sleep I kneel at my bed and pray to God for the return of prep school fashions by the time my daughter reaches dating age. Preppy was the style when I was in high school during the early 1980s.  With fashions now mimicking the 1970s, I'm hopeful that in five years we'll see the teenagers once again wearing pink Izods.
    It's not that I am a prude, but I'd feel better as a father if my teenage daughter left the house wearing a conservative sweater, straight leg jeans and penny loafers?  It just makes good sense.
    My wife says I can write all the letters I want to the top name fashion houses but they aren't going to listen to my pleas for preppy to go back in style.  I think they might.  After all, they listened to plumbers.
 

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